BLOOMINGTON — Few coaches around college basketball are as familiar with Indiana than Dusty May.
Michigan’s head coach grew up in Bloomfield, Ind., just a 40 minute drive from Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall. He attended IU from 1996 to 2000, and served as a student manager for the Hoosiers under Bob Knight. He knows what Indiana basketball means to the state, and he knows what the program was like on the back end of Knight’s tenure.
May knows the Hoosiers haven’t been at the same level they once were. But, as he said, the sport is very different than it was back then.
“18-2 is probably 15-5 or 14-6 now, with the amount of talent in the (game). Everything’s dispersed. The game is completely different. Everyone’s on TV now. Everyone has nice facilities. Everything’s changed about all of this,” May said after Michigan’s win over IU on Saturday. ” It’s not like it used to be where — and obviously there’s a few still at the top of the mountain, but for the most part, the mountain’s continuing to shift a little bit and and move in, move out.”
May’s return to Bloomington as Michigan head coach was always going to be a headline, given his ties to the program. But that spotlight intensified after the Hoosiers announced Mike Woodson’s intention to step down as IU head coach after the season. May is a clear potential candidate for the position, as a young, ascending coach who’s achieved success at the college level both in Ann Arbor and at Florida Atlantic.
He received a loud ovation from IU fans before Saturday’s game, which he called ‘flattering.’ But he stated he’s ‘very, very happy at the University of Michigan,’ while acknowledging there’s not much he could say to quell the rumors until the Hoosiers have a new coach in place.
May also said he still enjoys watching IU Athletics on occasion when he’s channel-surfing.
“I enjoy watching all Indiana Athletics,” May said. “If I turn on the TV on the Big Ten Network and IU soccer’s playing in the Final Four, I’m cheering because, I went to school here. But I’m not following it, and I’m not setting my calendar to watch IU football. If it’s on, I love watching it and and cheering for those guys and they had a wonderful year. But this is an all-encompassing job, and I’m focused on us.”
May carefully navigated questions about the Indiana job and Woodson, and didn’t want to comment extensively on a situation he hasn’t followed closely. He said the Hoosiers have a good team, and they could still make the NCAA Tournament if some breaks start going in their favor.
But he did offer praise for Woodson and his overall impact at IU. May doesn’t have a particularly tight relationship with Woodson, but they’d met several times. When May was an assistant at UAB, he sat in on some of Woodson’s Atlanta Hawks coaching staff meetings and practices. He called Woodson ‘a very, very nice man’ and ‘a big-time player.’
“I don’t know much about Coach Woodson. I don’t know much about the situation. Like I said, if anybody knows me, I’m pretty locked in on what I need to be doing,” May said. I think he’s a a fine basketball coach. I think he’s a fine human being. And he’s done a lot for this university, with the jersey on and with the suit on.”
Saturday was the lone meeting between May’s Wolverines and Woodson’s Hoosiers this season, barring a Big Ten Tournament matchup in Indianapolis.
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